Only people that have been coming to Firebird for better than 25 years would even be able to remember and
appreciate this Jim Kelly photo of the famed Firebird hillside parking lot. Taken at the 1981 Ignitor Nationals,
this picture shows the way parking and partying took place during the first 15 years of operation. For those of you
who might be new to the Firebird scene, this picture is long before the upper pit area was created (by literally moving
thousands of yards of earth). In fact, the first five rows of cars and trucks are just about where the upper pit restroom
is located today, along with all the paved pit parking that didn’t exist when this photograph was taken. It’s almost funny
in some respects because at some events there were as many people sitting in the back of their truck or on top of their vans
as there were in the grandstand seating. Now those were the days!